I think we agree on principle but not wording. Where you say faith, I would say belief. This matters because there are Buddhist traditions in which faith is central to practice. If you don’t have clarity and trust and confidence in Amitabhas vows, you are not a pure land practitioner. I don’t think...

Sadly I am having no luck at all with Imgur. Apparently the deal they are offering is free image hosting in exchange for extensive data mining of your personal information. However there is another alternative. You can come visit the stupa and wander around in and on it. Here's how. 1. Buy Minecraft...

I have some more screenshots and will slowly, agonizingly , using the arcane and ridiculous procedures of Win10, try to post them. For instance: [media][/media] 2018-02-16_18.24.45.png Of all the screenshots I took, this is the only one small enough that DharmaWheel will accept it. All the rest are ...

So I suppose u copy the precious mantras and paste them on the books. Then u put the books in the chest? Btw that’s so cool man. You should probably have a multiplayer realm for dharma buddies ! :) I like being out among the general public too much to confine it to dharma buddies. So you were close...

You seem to be using the word "faith" to indicate what I'd call make-believe: the act of actively believing in something in order to satisfy some imperative. I was wondering how you might respond to this use of the word, as a gloss for sraddha: Śraddha, as I mentioned already is a mental factor. It...

I wonder how that will work with a group of millenials. I imagine the Mars mission agenda will look like: 1. Complain about bad cell service. 2. Play Angry Birds on the phone. 3. Complain about being bored. 4. Watch some porn videos. 5. Get triggered by a routine suggestion from Mission Control and ...

Suppose you were to ordain as a monk and travel the world as a dharma teacher. Let us further suppose that every person you taught anything to killed their families and then committed suicide, all on the very day you passed on your teaching. Finally, let us suppose that you taught a hundred people a...

If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, yes it's a duck. Either that or it's an alien scout preparing for invasion while wearing some very advanced camo gear. Or it might be something Noonian Singh built. Or it could just be that you are seeing ducks everywhere and ne...

Thanks :) There is a little dock just out of sight so people can take a rowboat out to visit. Or, if they want to circumabulate, just stay in the boat and row your way around at high speed. The interior is not yet open to the public, but I have finished a nice inlaid floor and some smaller Buddhas. ...

Buddhists do the strangest things. Like me for instance. As a longtime practitioner of Buddhism and Minecraft, it had to happen. One day it occurred to me, why not build a stupa? The benefits are inconceivable, after all. I play a lot on a public server and soon found some prime real estate and star...

However, almost as soon as I am off the cushion and in the kitchen making a coffee….all the fear, existential dread and all the other $hit returns and there I am almost back into the same state as I was before sitting. Does anyone else struggle with this? :namaste: Yes. The Buddha himself. It was t...

I think i see what you mean. Granted, one would not want to stay with a nimitta forever. But if there is still agitation and excitement, then it is the thing to do. Things will calm down and then, progress through the jhanas will resume. I think he's doing wonderfully well.

In Greece they made us take part in a referendum as to whether we would accept the terms the bankers were putting on our loan. We thought that our government would actually listen to what we said. Stupid bastards that we are. But here we have a system where it is blaring obvious that voting counts ...

History repeats. When Reagan ran for President everyone blew him off as a bad joke. The left was amazed and shocked when got the nomination, and completely horrified when he won. But he turned out to be one of the better Presidents of the recent past, and a much more balanced person than anyone anti...

I did not vote in the poll. I saw no one there I would willingly vote for. Frankly if Vladimir Putin was added to the list of options I'd prefer him over the official offerings. Emperor Putin will make a fine ruler of Amereurasia once he has been converted to the Buddhadharma. :namaste: Now that yo...

Is there such a thing as a part time bodhisattva? My experience of humanity woud suggest that there is a spectrum of bodhisattva behavior ranging from those who make some annual donation, progressing through those who often concerned by the welfare of others, all the way up to the classical bodhisat...